Licentiate Column 17/10/13: Fringeadelic, Baby.

As fringe as fringey can be – after a week it is now down past my nose and near impossible to trim.

I just got a fringe cut in after a good two years of having what can only be described as not-a-fringe – and the only thing I can think about right now is whether or not an intrepid sub-editor will title this piece ‘Fringe Benefits’. As headers go, it’s not too bad. However, a pun only works if it makes sense both ways; so far I can see no benefits to having this particular fringe.

Some people are fringe people. I always thought that I was a fringe person, having been the proud wearer of a bowl cut for the first twelve ears of my life. My sisters and I looked like three primary school babushkas in navy school pinafores and identical 1920s shingle cuts. In retrospect we might have even looked a little bit trendy – my parents did always have a very interesting sense of aesthetics.

Now, however, there are only two fringe people worth talking about; Alexa and Zooey. Alexa Chung has a flippy, messy, grown out fringe. Zooey Deschanel has a retro 1960s thick fringe to compliment her retro 1960s thick glasses.

What happened was this. I asked for Alexa, I got Zooey. I only have myself and a suspiciously cheap Groupon voucher to blame.

I can’t remember what the stylist’s name was. I do, however, remember that he wore a baseball cap (bad sign), was a DJ in his spare time (he spent a good ten minutes telling me how his sets were drum’n’bass with funky drop, but not too funky if I knew what he meant – I did, mercifully) and he noticed, mid-cut, that a massive clump of my hair had gone missing at the back (I later remembered that I burned said chunk of hair off a week previously in a mishap involving a tealight and a can of Elnett).

The fringe looks ok, fine even. But, and this is a Capital B But, it’s not what I asked for. I am used to low maintenance hair. I am used to pushing my hand through my hair and having it fall into place, not pushing my hand through my hair and having it stick up at multiple angles like the bastard child of Sid Vicious and Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.

Properly washed and brushed, it looks nice. Five seconds in the rain however, and it looks like I have given up on functioning as a human being. It mats itself into interesting shapes and takes root on my forehead. Unsurprisingly, that is not a good look. Not a good look at all.

I’m not too sure who the original wearers of the fringe were. I know that the Ancient Egyptians wore them, usually on wigs. However, the Egyptians had two fundamental advantages over modern, European fringe wearers: 1) There’s little to no rain or humidity in Egypt causing said hair disasters and 2) The Egyptians could removes their fringes. That, I cannot do – no matter how hard I try.